More and more medical procedures for removing a mass of tissue or an organ from the abdomen of a patient are accomplished laparoscopically using a morcellator. Morcellators are surgical instruments which typically take the form of a hollow cylinder that penetrates the abdominal wall and has a free distal end in the form of a high speed moving cutter or blade. Many morcellators include a central lumen or passageway through which a grasping instrument can be inserted to pull the mass to be removed into a rotating cutter or blade to sever an extractable piece of that mass, which is withdrawn out of the morcellator through its central passageway.
While morcellators are effective for removing tissue from the body of the patient, the high-speed cutting action may free up some cells or other biological material, which can be dispersed within the peritoneal cavity. Thus, for example, if the tissue being removed is not known to be cancerous, but is in fact cancerous, there could be a release of cancer cells throughout the peritoneal cavity and from there elsewhere. Hence, it is possible for the process of morcellation to have an adverse effect on the patient, e.g., convert an undiagnosed stage II cancer into a stage IV cancer.
Accordingly, a need exists for a system for effectively and efficiently entrapping cells and other biological material produced during morcellation, yet which does not interfere or otherwise detract from the efficiency of a morcellation procedure and which can be used with conventional morcellators and laparoscopes. The subject invention addresses that need.